siriusly1986 Reviews

Love, Death & Robots (2019– )

Nihilistic Neoliberal Propaganda

[1/10 · 4 June 2022]

Doom and gloom, pretentious in your face liberal propaganda are littered everywhere in this sci-fi horror fantasy series. It does not bother about the nuance of both arguments made by pro-2nd amendment advocates, climate change 'deniers' skeptics, and support for strong US borders. The show already decided that not only are these people wrong but they are fools, idiots, and morons that will be solely responsible for destroying the planet and their demise is comedic.

There is nothing really new here. The visuals and animation are great but storywise something that has not already been done in previous sci-fi like Heavy Metal, HP Lovecraft, and various shows like the Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits and various syndicated sci-fi horror programs from the 80s.

Army of the Dead (2021)

Another Dumb Zombie Flick

[4/10 · 21 May 2021]

The intro segment of having paratroopers dropped on a zombie infested city with a hacky Elvis karaoke music playing in the background was a dead giveaway. Yes we get its Las Vegas. I was always a Snyder fan though his movies are centered around pop-culture subjects - comic books and superheroes - he always made the deep stories out of them. This movie is not. This is a mix of Zombieland, those terrible Resident Evil movies and many more cliche action-packed zombie movies that present themselves as "cool" and "awesome" that's aimed for young audiences that just wants to be entertained by flashy effects, gore and loud explosions - good story sacrificed.

There's also hints of political satire here as well which they manage to inject like immigration. People quarantined in cages who are detained to avoid another zombie outbreak. Strong feminist characters that come off more like women playing a male role lecturing to a character she shot because he sexually abused women by translating it as a very generalized phrase, "disrespecting women" instead of the obvious crime that he committed that he is a r-pist. She is also bothered that one of them used a female zombie head as trophy. Despite all that tripe one thing I liked though was that the zombies here gained somekind of sentience. They ride horses which looked cool and reminded me of dark fantasies from the 80s they used in metal covers. Unfortunately this too isn't really explored or shown much because the running and gunning and yelling scenes has to occupy the movie itself. Honestly this is really looks like a generic zombie action movie with a lot of budget behind it. Most of the characters are unlikable and they look like stereotypes and wannabes.

Interference: Democracy at Risk (2020)

Thanks for reminding me...

[1/10 · 29 March 2021]

Well I never really forgot and everyone shouldn't. For four years we have been bombarded with books, nightly commentaries from major networkds, and big-budget documentaries like this attacking Trump's legitimacy as president in the 2016 election winner. They were ready to go after Russia for "interfering" with the US election by creating that fake Dossier and dismissed Trump supporters online as "Russian bots" and fringe far-right.

Fast forward 2020 and the same industry that brought out all this anti-Trump propaganda in the guise of democracy and transparency are now pressuring censorship on websites when you question the mess that happened that sleazy November night in your social media. Politicians who question the election process in 2020 election are robbed of their powers, pressured to consent, or outright ignored, companies that show support are boycotted, and the whole affair dismissed as "dangerous conspiracy theory" that could only come up from unstable minds and therefore needs to be clamped down.

Thanks for reminding me of the hypocrisy. There's really nothing much to say about this movie. Its a dime a dozen documentary with a message no different from another ultra liberal establishment left-wing conspiracy theory documentary called Active Measures. Hopefully hope this review gets approved otherwise it just proves my point..

Greyhound (2020)

A Sinker

[3/10 · 15 July 2020]

A pop-corn flick and more of these dumbed down war movies like we have seen in films like Fury that look amazing, pretends to be serious at least from the start, but ultimately offer nothing substantial and even resorts silly antics to entertain certain audiences. The supposedly scary Germans here are once against portrayed as stupid, inept adversaries (Star Wars syndrome) as their submarines who have the advantage of stealth and ambush, surface to engage and expose themselves to Allied destroyers, cruisers, ASW aircraft and engage in a naval battle in a manner not seen since the Napoleonic wars! I have not read the book but I doubt this is what the very technical C.S. Forester had in mind.

Extraction (2020)

Over the Top

[5/10 · 25 April 2020]

This movie could have been better. The production was great, the cinematography was excellent. Expected a well-rounded story but once again these new action movies are all about choreographed action scenes, martial arts, and cannon-fodder soldiers of probably the entire Bangladeshi police force which the characters in this movie just wipe out like they were shooting cardboard targets - it was ridiculous. If I wanted this I'd play an arcade shooter video game instead of watching a film.

Brexit (2019 TV Movie)

Dominic Cummings is the "Russia" of Great Britain

[9 January 2019]

If this isn't clear enough the narrative goes, as it was "Russia" or the Russians that made Trump win the 2016 election, so then it was Cummings and his shady analytical and online meddling that won the Leave EU vote in Britain. Forget about people going out of their way to vote for Trump and Brexit, it was outside forces, mind you, not their own citizens walking down the streets that day and head to the voting booth to decide for themselves what they want for their country.

To these cosmopolitans we crude simpletons just don't have enough sentience to go about and are merely victims of Kremlin hackers, spam email, the Like Button --- the black cat that crossed the road that forced us to walk a different direction! They'll blame anyone rather than understand you and me.

Generational Sins (2017)

TV Drama

[6/10 · 5 November 2018]

Its a tv drama with religiosity. If you like films about redemption and coming to terms then you might enjoy it.

Big Legend (2018)

Bigfoot

[6/10 · 3 July 2018]

Low budget movie but rather done well. Acting was decent and revolved around the Bigfoot legend and on the angle that these things are not shy ape-like creatures and cuddly teddy bears but predators as was described by old Native American folklore. Kept me entertained well enough tonight.

Affairs of State (2018)

Pretty good and steamy political drama

[6/10 · 17 June 2018]

Pretty good and steamy political drama. But as usual anything coming from Hollywood the movie leans Left and the corrupt and conniving characters in the film are actively a conservative belonging to a third way, quasi-Republican political party called, the United Party. However the movie steers away from hammering rhetoric and instead revolves on the characters and their actions which is quite decent and surprising considering the reactions and political climate we are in today in the United States.

Blacksite: Area 51 (2007 Video Game)

"Why do strange things happen to small towns?"

[9/10 · 28 May 2018]

Old school style first-person shooter that plays on the Area 51 urban legend. I like the game and it gives that sci-fi action movie vibe like the 2011 film Battle Los Angeles. But if there was an action packed episode of the X-Files filled with government troops, an assortment of aliens both big and small then this game would be closer to that.

The game has several alien designs and I personally find them really well done. These aliens range from humanoid types, insectoids to gigantic worm and tentacled creatures that looked like they came out of the 2007 movie, The Mist. The characters are likable and engage in funny small talk. The game is set on the present day which is refreshing seeing all these popular "human vs. alien" shooters that are always set in the future in space in some planet far away. Having to see soldiers in contemporary US military equipment battling aliens in some western desert in small town America is somewhat a rarity in video games with Half-Life 1 from 1998 the only thing that comes close to mind.

Having played this on the PC the graphics seems to be superior from what I gathered with those who played it on Playstation who complained about the graphics being foggy. Unreal Engine is gorgeous and it really comes out with the PC. I also heard the game is notorious for being 'unfinished' because of production problems it faced. This is noticeable during gameplay, with npc soldiers appearing out of nowhere during sequences and then disappearing from the map and also when they are killed which I find really archaic. A patch or mod could have fixed this but so far in 2018 (ten years later) I have not found any.

I give the game a solid 9 because I expected a really bad game due to the mediocre to negative press but was pleasantly surprised instead. Blacksite Area 51 reminds me of games I used to play in the past. It has that old school charm but with nicer graphics and interesting Americana sci-fi setting. If you are fan of conspiracy theories regarding extraterrestrials and the government cover-ups give this game a try. Its not that bad its actually quite enjoyable.

Con Man (2018)

Unfair reviews

[7/10 · 12 March 2018]

Reading the so-called reviews here I would have passed on watching the movie thinking it was not well-done film. But a closer look at these same reviews it seems to me people give it a down rate and a bad mouth simply for being a "Christian" movie (and not expecting it to be). Rather unfair really! Having watched the film the movie is not a bad film at all and YES it does tackle religion/faith and that is because that's how Barry Minkow's life really went. That would be like watching a Unabomber film without mentioning Kazcinsky's Manifesto. Faith plays a huge part of Minkow's story that's just how it is but despite that is not Sunday School material either - this was not a good man.

As for the movie, the acting was good particularly the guy who played Minkow. He really reminds me of THAT GUY, manipulative, scheming, ambitions, and using his charms to get the upper hand. The production is okay but what do you expect from a drama? The subject would likely touch people because its pretty down to Earth. If you like "life-changing drama" with a little crime - something out of real crime documentaries like MASTERMIND and AMERICAN GREED then give it a go you will not be disappointed.

The Lodgers (2017)

A lot of build-up and mystery but all for nothing.

[4/10 · 24 February 2018]

The movie starts off interesting but in the end nothing really happens. Only good people die here (one particularly was just an old man who traveled far just to do his job) while good-for-nothing types just go on about their lives beating up and harassing people. While the movie is filled with assumptions and mysteries nothing is revealed here. The characters are bland and you really do not know anything much about them to care enough about their plight. It feels wasted because the acting was quite good. The amount of time and effort they spent on effects and shots of scenery which gets repeated anyway should have been spent on story-telling and it would have been more creepy. Drops of water, wet objects and naked people are not really scary.